


Arrangements

by shara



Category: House M.D.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 09:28:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4474118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shara/pseuds/shara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>House and Wilson cuddle and argue about funeral homes. No, really. Unrelated to the season 4 finale, but mentions it briefly. Concrit welcome!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arrangements

  
“You should tell Stacy,” Wilson says, staring at the ceiling.

“Why?” House asks, turning to stare too. Overhead, the light from the streetlamps catches the shifting window curtains in odd ways, casting patterns that move snake-like across the whitewash. It reminds him suddenly of the tiny room he had in Egypt a lifetime ago, and the way he would stare up at the ceiling fan in the middle of night, watching shadows getting cut up by the spinning blades.

“Because she loves you,” Wilson answers with a sigh. “She deserves to know.”

His voice has been laden with sighs all day. House hates the way that this has carved lines around Wilson’s eyes, turned down the corners of his lips.

He turns away from the ceiling and toward Wilson, letting his arm curl around Wilson’s chest. He buries his nose in Wilson’s neck and licks lightly at his collarbone, tastes salt from their midnight exertion.

“She’s married,” he says, moving along Wilson’s collarbone slowly, flicking his tongue out to touch the soft, pale skin. “She’s definitely over me.”

Wilson finds House’s hand lying across his chest and entwines their fingers together, trails his thumb along the calluses and ridges, the sharp lines of tendons raised against the skin. When House doesn’t pull his hand away, Wilson says, “I’m not sure anyone ever really gets over you.”

House smiles a little at that and bites gently into Wilson’s skin, hears Wilson’s hiss and watches the little spot flush red. He has a sudden glimmer of memory of a lazy Saturday morning spent in bed, kissing the freckles on Stacy’s shoulder, her smile teasing and open and wishes, not for the first time, that Wilson had freckles on his shoulder. He probably had them when he was younger, House thinks, from whole days spent at the beach with his brothers, light brown dots all over his shoulders and a line of them across his nose. He wishes he could have seen Wilson then. He would have licked his way along them, traced his own constellations into Wilson’s skin.

“Cuddy, then,” Wilson says, pulling his hand free to rub the House-bite, trying to erase the teeth-mark brand, but making his skin redder in the process. “She’ll have to know. And your team.”

House pulls away and rolls over to face the ceiling, stretches his legs out and ignores the resulting throb in his thigh. His team. He tries to gauge their reactions, remembers the heavy, pregnant silence that afternoon when he and Wilson had seen the printout with the results of his liver function test.

Wilson had pointed at the little red number. “SGPT is elevated,” he’d said.

“Yes,” House had said.

And then neither of them had said anything for a while.

His team is more banal, their reactions less important: they will probably produce a clamor of cringe-inducing sympathy. Kutner will fumble his way through well-meant apologies, falling over himself to be helpful; Foreman might care, but then, he might not; Taub will try to look sincerely sorry, but will probably be thinking about where his next paycheck is coming from; and Thirteen—well, he’s not really sure what Thirteen would do. He’s still a little annoyed that she’ll get to outlive him.

“Do you have a pre-need?” Wilson asks suddenly, interrupting his thoughts.

“A what?”

“A pre-need, with a funeral home,” he explains. “It’s to plan out your service ahead of time.”

House grimaces. “That’s creepy; who does that? And I don’t want a service, anyway.”

“Lots of people do. I have one,” Wilson says, frowning over at him. “And you have to have a service.”

“Of course _you_ would have one,” House says, rolling his eyes. “And no, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“ _No_ , I don’t.”

“ _Yes_ , you do.” Wilson’s eyebrows have almost knit together in disapproval.

House gives up. “Fine, you can plan a stupid service for me. But I already have a will, I don’t need one of those pre-things. It’s the same thing.”

“It is _not_ the same—okay, you know what? _Fine_ ,” Wilson says. “ _I’ll_ call a funeral home tomorrow and ask about a pre-need.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“ _Fine_.”

They lie there in frustrated silence for a few minutes, and House feels the urge to reach for his Vicodin. He turns to the bedside table and grabs a lollipop instead, stolen from the clinic that afternoon, and stuffs it into his mouth, tastes sweet chemical flavoring on his tongue.

“Why do you always eat those?” Wilson asks, distracted from his annoyance. He curls into House’s side and runs a hand over his chest, fingers tickling the sparse hair there.

“It takes the taste of your come out of my mouth,” House says meanly, hoping to inspire some sarcasm, but Wilson just nods absently and drops a kiss onto his shoulder, other things on his mind.

House turns back to the ceiling before saying, “I’m going to talk to the landlord tomorrow and transfer the lease to your name.”

It’s not much of a gesture, and it’s a bit redundant at this point, when Wilson’s possessions have long since settled into his apartment, fitting quietly into the empty spaces in House’s life. Wilson understands the importance though, and looks at him with dark, limpid eyes.

“House,” he says, voice heavy with words unspoken. “How are you doing? With all this?”

House thinks suddenly of the pale, empty bus that still visits him in dreams sometimes, and of Amber, long gone now, her smile peaceful and knowing. He tries to think of his death realistically, outside of metaphors and symbolism, with cold, hard truth, and expects to feel terrified, but what he mostly feels is relief.

“I’m tired,” he admits.

Wilson looks stricken. “House—” he begins, voice wavering.

“Look,” House interrupts. “Can we please cry about this tomorrow? I’m really not in the mood tonight.”

There is a pause, and then Wilson sighs, “All right,” and moves his hand to settle over House’s heart, so they can both feel its steady, persevering beat.


End file.
